Roasted Beet & Fig Salad with Goat Cheese and Blackberry Balsamic Reduction is an amazing side dish to any main entrée! This nutritious, flavorful beet salad is just as nutritious as it is tasty!
There was some serious crunching this weekend.
You know that little cookbook I’ve been telling you about for 6 months?
It’s pretty much in the bag.
Other than a booty busting trail run, a marathon Revenge watching session, and a prime rib dinner that prompted me to put on proper clothing and run a comb through my hair, this girl’s been glued to her Imagine Dragons pandora radio and her overheating laptop. Tip typing away at the love of my life.
My book about bugs. Delicious Probitoic Drinks.
There may be a period of adjusting back to real life after all the time I have spent with Microsoft Word and Adobe Lightroom. With Imagine Dragons radio. Goo Goo Dolls have made a comeback, what? We’re so lucky!
Apparently I won’t be too prompt about my adjustment back.
Okay…things…that involve you. This salad!
This salad plus my obsession for beets and figs.
At my work, we keep fancy olive oils and vinegars because we ladies love us some fresh crisp salads for lunch.
We currently have a bottle of strawberry balsamic vinegar, which has made me a better employee and is responsible for me enjoying food more at work than at home as of late. It’s that good. I actually long for it.
Can I go to work now? I’d like some strawberry balsamic vinegar.
Well, as awesome of a worker bee I am, glued to a bottle of vinegar, the smart thing to do is make it yourself at home. DIY fruity balsamic, represent! You hate me today.
Roasted Beet & Fig Salad:
I made blackberry balsamic which is pretty much the easiest way of being a fancy person, requiring just blackberries, balsamic vinegar, honey and the willingness to boil. Do you hate beets? Soak those buggers in a fruity balsamic vinegar. Life’s changing!
Let’s have a conversation about roasting. Roasted beets: good. Roasted figs: great! Roasted figs make me want to sing corny songs.
It’s probably healthy for my relationship that I don’t act on this impulse. And this salad…serious fist pumping, chest bumping, football-hiking UGH! I did just say all of those things about a beet salad. Unabashedly.
What happens when you have a cookbook to finish?
You take 20 pictures of figs because how freaking cool do their extraterrestrial tendrils look on the inside? Move over, cookbook, figs is crazy!
And then there’s the pictures of beets too.
For the past few weeks, I have been roasting a few beets at a time before the workweek starts so that I can have them in salads during the week.
I feel like such an adult when I tell you these things. I then do posh things with the roasted beets like toss them together with blackberry balsamic vinegar, roasted figs, goat cheese and walnuts.
You know what else I do with this salad?
I double salad it. Put it on top of mixed greens, add in some blueberries and stain everything red. You can double salad, too. All’s you need is green and blue…berries. Okay, I’m done.
And that’s all. Beets bring you a good life.
Also try my Roasted Beet Arugula Salad with Maple Balsamic Vinaigrette!
Roasted Beet & Fig Salad
Ingredients
For the Roasted Beet & Fig Salad
- 1 large red beet chopped
- 4 figs quartered
- 2 tablespoons walnuts roasted
- 3 tablespoons goat cheese
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- Sea salt and pepper to taste
For the Reduced Blackberry Balsamic
- ¾ cup ripe blackberries
- ½ cup balsamic vinegar
- 2 teaspoons honey
Instructions
To Prepare the Blackberry Balsamic Vinegar
- Heat the balsamic vinegar and berries in a saucepan over medium heat, covered. Bring to a full boil
- Remove cover and smash blackberries with a fork, allowing the mixture to continue to boil. Reduce the liquid by 1/3.
- Add the honey and stir to incorporate.
- Use a fine strainer to strain out the blackberry pulp and push on the pulp with a spoon to release as much of the juices as possible.
- Pour the blackberry balsamic vinegar into a jar and put it in the refrigerator to cool.
To Prepare the Beet Salad
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
- Scrub the beet and chop off the greens (you can discard the beet greens or use them in your cooking). Dice the beet into ¼” to ½” cubes. Place the chopped beet on a sheet of aluminum foil. Fold the edges of the foil over on top of each other, creating a package of beet.
- Put the beet package on a cookie sheet and roast in the oven for 50 minutes or until beets are soft when poked with a fork. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.
- While beets are roasting, quarter the figs and place them on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Roast them for 10 to 12 minutes, until their juices begin seeping out. Remove from oven and set aside.
- When everything is nice and roasted and cooled, arrange the beets, figs, walnuts and goat cheese on a plate. Drizzle everything with 2 teaspoons of olive oil.
- Drizzle desired amount of blackberry balsamic vinegar over the ingredients, saving what you don’t use for future salads.
- Serve salad either warm or cold!
I. Love. Figs. And beets! And I have both in my fridge right now AND company coming for dinner. Time for me to go preheat the oven and get to roasting! This exactly what I was looking for when I was hunting Pinterest for fig salad ideas. I don’t have walnuts or goat cheese but I bet feta would be tasty! Will toss with greens and act all posh as I serve it to my guests!
Alas, I do not enjoy myself some beets. BUT I might just bathe MYSELF in that balsamic vinegar situation. Fruity balsamic? WHAAAAT?!
Go finish that book.
Roasted beets are the ONLY beets I will eat. 😀 So this salad already sounds delicious to me! Your photos are gorgeous–and congrats on finishing the book! I bet you are doing a happy dance about that–I know I would be!
I just got home from vacay so I’m late but WHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! LOVE the new design girl!!! Looks AH-mazing. Any that salad is dang purdy too 😉 I can’t get enough of figs or beets this time of year, this will be a summer staple!
Yaaaaay! Thanks so much, my dear! I’m glad you like it. I couldn’t be happier with the way it turned out. Hope you had fun on vacation!!
Such an earthy, sweet salad! I love this, Julia!
Girl, this salad sums up what I love most about summertime. YUM! BTW great job kicking butt and finishing things up with the book!!!
What a gorgeous salad! I could it eat it every single day for lunch!!!
G’day! I love roatsed beets too!
Love the combo of beets and figs…YUM..healthy and delicious too!
Cheers! Joanne
Now on FB too http://www.facebook.com/whatsonthelist
Beautiful photos, Julia!! I wish I could get on the ball and roast a bunch of beets before the work week! This salad look absolutely gorg and totally delicious!!
I need to eat about 12 lbs of this salad after my vacation! What a beautiful dish!
This is an 11 out of 10!! I adore roasted beets in summer.
Thanks, my dear! We could do some serious beet damage to this salad and wash it all down with a glass of wine! 🙂
I love roasted beets! We have trouble finding figs here, though, so when you visit us, maybe you could bring us some, ’cause I looove them. This looks yummy. Ok. Off to vote for your recipe again. I’m proud of myself for remembering each day. 🙂
So funny, I have never ever seen figs at a grocery store until the ones I picked up for the salad. It’s a smaller mom-and-pop store and the big grocery stores in this area don’t carry figs. I wonder what part of the country is getting them??
I don’t know. I have seen them on occasion at our Fresh Market, but that’s hit and miss and usually only in the winter. I would have thought for sure it would be in your neck of the woods. We do have good sweet corn around here, though, but that wouldn’t do much for this salad. I’ll keep an eye out for them, though.